Surrealism Quotes
![When the Surrealist exhibition [in London, 1936] was held Barbara [Hepworth] was by then married to [the sculptor] w:Ben Nicholson, they were strongly against it [against Surrealism ], though I felt, and feel, that there needn't be the sort of division in art that sprang up then. And Ben had also been much influenced by Mondrian. He was devoted to abstract art and she became much more interested in the abstract form. But for me, the essence of sculpture has always been the human figure. Still, of course, one kept in touch and one met and one's paths crossed. (Henry Moore)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/81/henry-moore-abstract-art-484081.webp)
I find myself lined up with the surrealists because Surrealism means freedom for the creative side of man, for surprise & discovery & life, for an opening out & widening of mans consciousness, for changing life & against conserving worn out traditions, for variety not a uniformity, for opening not closing.
Henry Moore
In Hanover I built, before Hitler's time, a studio called Merzbau. This has been reproduced very much, also in the book 'Dada, Surrealism, Fantastic Art' of the Museum of Modern Art N. Y. I would like to go to Germany for restoring the Merzbau... Could I come with you to an agreement that you give me for this purpose some money? For example that I give you some pictures for the money and use it for restoring the studio... Or would you prefer that you own with me half and half?..
Kurt Schwitters
As far as my work is concerned, I felt at that time [1970's] the need to start from the 'nadir' (nothingness); not a zero, but I had to go back to my roots and finally reacquire and make my own many approaches that I had once vaguely internalized, through Surrealism, in my early years. Many of the techniques that validate the anarchic impulses of the imagination and the subconscious became important again, for example, the conscious inclusion of chance, of failure and of error. (quote of Tàpies 1983)
Antoni Tàpies
The conflict between the theories of Surrealism & pure abstraction leads many to look upon one as black & bad & the other as white & good. Yet it seems to me that a good work of art has always contained both abstract & surrealist elements – just as it has both classical & romantic elements (order & surprise?).. .Surrealism is widening the field of contemporary art & is giving more freedom to the artist (& perhaps what is not unimportant, – stretching the appreciation of the public). Abstraction is re-establishing fundamental laws; bringing back form to painting & sculpture. There are many products of surrealism which I personally dislike,.. ..but equally Unimportant to me are the empty decorations produced in the name of abstraction.
Henry Moore
In discussing his work [the art of Marcel Duchamp, ] it is necessary to avoid overrating his silence. I hold him in a very high esteem, but I have to reject his silence. Duchamp was simply finished. He had run out of ideas; he was unable to come up with anything important... I would say that even the bourgeois tendencies in Duchamp's work – i. e., a form of provocative, bohemian behavior intended to 'épater le bourgeois'- follow the same path. Duchamp started out from here and wanted to shock the bourgeoisie, and because of that he destroyed his creative powers... The content of Duchamp's silence refers to the aim of leaving the subconscious passive, of developing it. This is the aspect of Duchamp, which is related to Surrealism. The surrealists asserted that they could live with their subconscious; they thought they were above reality, but instead they were beneath it. They thought they could fish in muddy waters.... but to my mind, the images which emerged have a repressive effect.
Joseph Beuys
Surrealism will usher you into death, which is a secret society. It will glove your hand, burying therein the profound M with which the word Memory begins. Do not forget to make proper arrangements for your last will and testament: speaking personally, I ask that I be taken to the cemetery in a moving van. May my friends destroy every last copy of the printing of the Speech concerning the Modicum of Reality.
André Breton
I mean, the official definition of Surrealism is to make a work automatically without a priori aesthetic or moral conditions, which is exactly what we do [artist in New York School / Abstract Expressionism]. At the same time Surrealism was an assault, - with a few exceptions: Giacometti, Arp and Miro - on the 'purity' of painting. I mean mean, on making painting - means themselves speak, without reliance on literature; and that second insistence of Surrealism, Americans really rejected. So that historically.... Abstract Expressionism is in part, I think, a fusion of certain Surrealist means, above all plastic 'automatism' with the Cubist's insistence that the picture speaks as a picture in strictly pictorial language.
Robert Motherwell
Plastic automatism.... as employed by modern masters, like Masson, Miro, [both artists of Surrealism] and Picasso, is actually very little a question of the unconsciousness. It is much more a plastic weapon with which to invent new forms. As such it is one of the twentieth century greatest formal inventions.
Robert Motherwell
As for a few others, the vital task was a wedding of abstraction and surrealism. Out of these opposites something new could emerge, and Gorky's work is a part of the evidence that this is true. What he felt, I suppose, was a sense of polarity, not of dichotomy; that opposites could exist simultaneously within a body, within a painting or within an entire art.. .These are the opposites poles in his work. Logic and irrationality; violence and gentleness; happiness and sadness, surrealism and abstraction. Out of these elements I think Gorky evolved his style.
Adolph Gottlieb